NJ State Tri Recap

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Saturday I completed the NJ State Sprint Triathlon… it was perfect weather for a tri, cool and a cloudy. My friend Gordon completed the tri with me and my husband was there for cheering, support, and of course photo taking!

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Swim: The swim took place in the lake, water temp was 82 degrees (a little warm, but better than freezing). It was a different swim start than I had done in the past and it wasn’t my favorite. Each corral (age group) had to swim out to two buoys and tread water for a few minutes until the director gave the okay for time to start for that group. I didn’t mind a little treading water as a warm up, but was not a big fan of swimming next to guys. Guys are more aggressive than girls in the water and some of them don’t care if they are running over a guy or girl. Boo. Another con was that a girl in my age group had a panic attack in the water before we started so the lifeguard kayaks and boat had to come in and rescue her… delaying our groups start and causing more energy to be spent treading water. Really I shouldn’t complain too much because the swim was so short, but it’s more a nerves thing. Anyways, so they pulled the girl out of the water and a couple minutes later we were allowed to start! I knew the swim would take me 10-15 minutes and was a short distance… I started strong and didn’t panic too much although I had to pull my head out of the water a couple times after being trampled into by other swimmers (so disorienting). The swim was 400m straight and then a left turn… once I got to the turn I had passed most of the crazy diagonal swimming people so I felt like I had a strong finish. Note: you don’t find out the breakdown time of each leg of the race including transition until the results are posted later online (unless you time yourself, which I don’t) but I will include each of my times in my synopsis. I finished the swim in 11:05, Excellent! My swim rank was 305 out of 1198 (including women and men!)

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A quick note on transition… I suck at transitioning, I don’t like being rushed. I’m organized but once you jump out of open water after swimming and you’re running past racks of bikes, you are out of it! My transition from swim to bike was 3:30. I didn’t look at any other times but I thought that was bad. I just kinda take my time drying off and eat a GU, put on my socks and shoes. Eventually I need to get better at transitioning. My transition from bike to run was 1:32. Basically just pushing my bike back and racking it, grabbing another GU for the road, and throwing on my race belt.

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Bike: The bike course was a huge loop around the park out onto public roads that were mostly blocked off for the triathlon. There were a couple parts where cars were but very few, so they told you to be aware of traffic but it was very sparse. So I start the bike course and I’m probably a ¼ mile in and my chair comes loose on my bike. I quickly get off and try to fix it but it looks like the derailleur is off track, I manage to get it back on and wait for bike traffic to slow down so I can mount my bike and get back into the race. Here I’m praying that I fixed the issue and it won’t happen again. Wrong. By mile 5 it had happened 3 more times… I discovered any time I went very fast it happened quicker so after that I decided to slow down… clearly it wasn’t going to be my best race since I’d already lost so much time pulling over and fixing the chain. Most Frustrating thing ever… I was so ready for this race and had improved soooo much on the bike, felt so confident going in, and it just wasn’t meant to be. I rode pretty slowly the rest of the course, stopping 3 more times to fix chain… made friends with some other slow riders. I had a handful of people ask if I was okay when I was pulled over which was nice… I was hoping by some miracle someone who knew a lot about bikes and could fix whatever problem I was having would stop. No such luck. I finished the most depressing bike ride of my life in 50:25. My rank is pretty sad, 1162 out of 1198. Yup, I was terrible. However I’m confident that had I had no bike issues I would’ve been at least 10-15 minutes faster. Oh well 🙁

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Run: The run was an out and back course along a paved trail in the woods. It was shaded and mostly flat with a couple tiny rolling hills. After the bike fiasco I was pretty sad, but told myself that if I couldn’t do really well on the bike because of the issues I was having, I would at least try to push myself on the run and do well. Running is my best event of the triathlon… I’m a much better runner than biker, and swimmer. Running is easy…. I’m better at pacing myself for longer distances but a 5k is nothing so I tried to push myself. Note: running any distance after biking is painful for at least the first half mile… your legs feel like jello and its really hard to get them to work smoothly. Usually after a half mile the jello feeling starts to wear off and you hit your stride. I didn’t practice too many brick workouts (bike followed immediately by a run) but I knew the jello effect would happen no matter what. I enjoyed myself on the run, cracking some jokes to volunteers (mostly children) and of course saying thank you! I finished the run in 25:03. My run rank was 363 out of 1198!! Out of men and women! I should note that while there are a good amount of runners that do triathlons, many triathletes are non-runners and suffer through 3.1 miles.  But it is by far the easiest for me… I thought it was a good time for an 5k, even more so considering the swim and bike I had just completed.

Overall I was proud of myself for doing well on the swim and run and holding it together on the bike. It was extremely frustrating and discouraging to be having those chain issues and having to stop my ride but I held it together and pushed myself to stay positive and finish. My overall time was 1:31:37… which actually wasn’t terrible. Women’s rank was 324 out of 542. Overall rank 859 out of 1198. You can clearly see how much the bike ruined my overall time, but it could’ve been worse, and at least I wasn’t injured.  I know I could dominate that course another time, and I will!

Have you even done a triathlon or thought about it? Does reading this make you more interested? (or less, haha)? Ever completed a triathlon before?? Any tips (especially on bike maintenance?)

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